The Wild West

First, you don’t “got to do something,” but you should consider shootings as public health crises.

President Obama ordered a gun violence study by Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The study concluded self-defense can be an important crime deterrent and there was no evidence gun restrictions reduced gun violence. Skeptics can pay $38 for their own copy. However, the CDC study Bill Clinton ordered in 2003 presented the same conclusions, and that one is free online.

The Clinton Administration also commissioned in 2005 a National Science Foundation (NSF) study finding no positive correlation between gun control laws and other measures after consulting 400 sources and doing its own research. The only dissent detailed in Appendix A was John Lott’s conclusion that concealed carry laws do drive down murder rates.

The dissent discussed a 20-year study by John Lott and William Landes from the University of Chicago Law School. That and subsequent Lott studies the NSF reviewed correlated passage of concealed-carry laws with large decreases in multiple-victim shootings, and reduced harm when shootings did occur.

Since guns have the volition of a cabbage, and laws controlling violence by controlling guns have proved futile, the standard emotional, asymmetrical reactions only provide useful political theater and failed solutions.

Consider hardening sites by limiting access and allowing concealed carry. Eliminate gun-free zones, because people there enjoy the same security as chickens in a Foster Farms processing plant. Stop bureaucrats and politicians from ignoring repeated demonstrations of severe psychopathic behavior.